YouTube Ranking Factor: Time Watched More Important Than Number of Views

Ever wonder why some videos you posted on YouTube get lower ranking despite having more page views than those on top of the heap?

We may now have answers.

YouTube’s official blog explains that it has incorporated a new ranking factor which looks more on how long videos have been watched rather than the perceived page views as described in the first paragraph. It is a common notion that a popular video has much higher chance of landing on top of search results for a relevant query.

However, if we think that popular means more page views or more clicks pointing to the video, then YouTube says that’s a bit offside. That is because not all of these clicks that lead to the video meant people are sticking around watching attentively to the video.

What YouTube wants to do is reward videos that are not only watched in full, but also lead to visitors clicking on suggested videos, since the more people got engaged (translated as people continuously viewing videos on YouTube) the happier they are with content presented to them.

Hopefully, it helps us understand better which part of the video people drop off (pretty much like in a shopping cart), determine whether it’s the length of the video that needs to be fixed, and a host of other issues, so we can try to fixing them.